This invention relates to medical instruments and, more particularly, to illuminated tissue manipulators for ophthalmic surgery and the like.
During ophthalmic surgery, such as surgery to repair a detached retina, it is important to have a light inside the patient's eye so that the posterior portion of the eye is illuminated well enough to permit the surgeon to readily observe the area of repair. Vitreous membrane pulling the retina forward because of traction must be cut and stripped to relieve the tension so that the retina can lay flat.
With the most widely used prior instruments, the surgeon has to hold a light probe inserted through an incision in the eye in one hand and strip and cut membrane with an instrument inserted through another incision in the eye and held in the other hand. In some cases, separate instruments are used for stripping and manipulating membrane and for cutting the membrane. Consequently, one must be removed and replaced with the other during the surgery procedure. In extreme cases, it may even be necessary to use a light probe, a tissue stripping or manipulating instrument and a cutting instrument inserted through three separate incisions in the eye.
Attempts have been made to either modify or add components to ophthalmic light probes so that they can also serve as a tissue manipulator. Such attempts generally have met with limited success, primarily because the light beam at the tip of the light probe is diffused in an undesirable manner or the additional parts make the device too costly and/or add bulkiness which requires a larger than normal incision in the patient's eye for admission.